Sudan: Crowds of rescue-seekers swell at main seaport

Exhausted Sudanese and foreigners joined growing crowds at Sudan's main seaport on Tuesday, waiting to be evacuated from the chaos-stricken nation. After more than two weeks of fighting, areas of the capital of Khartoum appear increasingly abandoned.

The battle for control of Sudan erupted on April 15, after months of escalating tensions between the military, led by General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and a rival paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces, commanded by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

Other nations have tried to convince the two generals to stop the fighting and come to the negotiating table. The government of South Sudan, which officially split from Sudan in 2011, said on Tuesday that the two rival generals have agreed in “principle” on a week-long cease-fire starting Thursday, and on engaging in peace talks. The statement did not elaborate on the possible venue or timing for the talks.

South Sudan President Salva Kiir spoke with both Burhan and Dagalo over the phone, the government said in a statement. There was no immediate comment from either the army or the paramilitary.

Meanwhile, civilians were packing buses and trucks for Sudan’s northern border with Egypt. Many others headed to Port Sudan, on the country's Red Sea coast. The relative calm of the port city, from which many foreign governments have evacuated their citizens, seemed the safer option.

“Much of the capital has become empty,” said Abdalla Al Fatih, a Khartoum resident who fled with his family to Port Sudan on Monday. He said they had been trapped for two weeks, and that by now, everyone on his street had left.

When they arrived in Port Sudan after a 20-hour journey, they found thousands, including many women and children, camping outside the port area. Many had been in the open air for more than a week, with no food and other services. Others crowded into mosques or hotels inside the city.

Tariq Abdel-Hameed was one of around 2,000 Syrians in Port Sudan hoping to get out by sea or air. Some 200 Syrians have been evacuated since the crisis began, including 35 on Friday on a vessel bound for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The first Damascus-bound flight was scheduled to take off later Tuesday, Abdel-Hameed said, with about 200 on board, mostly pregnant women and the sick.

At the congested crossing points with Egypt, thousands of families have waited for days inside buses or sought temporary shelter in the border town of Wadi Halfa.

Yusuf Abdel-Rahman, a Sudanese university student, said he and his family entered Egypt through the Ashkit border crossing late on Monday. They had first gone to another crossing point, Arqin, but said it was too crowded to make the attempt. Families with children and the sick were stranded in the desert landscape with no food and water, he recounted.

In Khartoum, Abdel-Rahman said he had seen widespread destruction and looting. He knows many people whose homes have been commandeered by the paramilitary forces and thinks they are lucky to have left before their home was stormed.

“We could have ended up dead bodies," he said.

The fighting has displaced at least 334,000 people inside Sudan, and sent tens of thousands more to neighbouring countries — Egypt, Chad, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Ethiopia, according to UN agencies. Aid workers are increasingly concerned about lack of basic services in these areas.

Between 900 and 1,000 people arrive daily at the border with Ethiopia, Paul Dillon, a spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration, said at a news briefing on Tuesday in Geneva. At least 20,000 people crossed into Chad, which borders the Darfur city of Genena, where clashes last week killed dozens and wounded hundreds.

Aleksandra Roulet-Cimpric, the Chad Country Director with the International Rescue Committee, described dire conditions for the arrivals there, many of them women and children who have no choice but to seek shelter from the heat under sparse trees.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi warned that the number of people fleeing to neighbouring countries could surpass 800,000.

Early on Tuesday, the sounds of explosions and gunfire echoed though many parts of Khartoum, with fierce clashes taking place around the military’s headquarters, the international airport and the Republican Palace, residents said. Warplanes were seen flying overhead, they said.

• Sudan conflict drives 100,000 over border amid crumbling ceasefires